The Thrifty Cruisers Edge Panama Canal Feb 13-23 so not live:)

cgolf1 · February 26, 2023

Oh yeah, the magic carpet. The first Edge cruise in 2019 we could go out there and hang out anytime we wanted, it was great. This time it was difficult to find a spot and we didn’t spend as much time as we hoped out there.

My wife heard a fair amount of people say something like that they had thought it was a gimmick but it is a really nice place to hang out. One couple mentioned to me it worked really well for tendering when we were anchored in Lake Gatun.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Back at it

Day 3

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Today was an exciting day as we are supposed to do a behind the scenes tour. Unfortunately the night before we were informed that we needed to divert to Jamaica for a medical emergency. Thankfully it sounds like the person was improving, and hope that they have made a full recovery and made it home. This meant that our excursion needed to be rescheduled.

Since we didn't have the excursion we went to the Beyond the podium about the magnificent creatures of the sea. The rest of the day we chilled out, played some cards and seam a bit.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Supper was again in Cyprus

I had the Escargot and the Oven roasted jerk spiced chicken. My wife had the organic roasted red beets, which she really liked, and the spinach and ricotta ravioli. Both meals were very good. I will say I was really impressed that they were always toasting my gluten free bread for me. this a a new thing that hasn't happened before but I really liked it.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Random food and beverage pictures. Was really impressed with the gluten free options in Cafe al bacio. they always had three cakes and we have only ever seen 1 before.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Alright I forgot the cake display in Oceanview on Valentines day so here we go:) Along with the chocolate fountain. The chocolate fountain also made an appearance on the last day too.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

Some art from around the ship. My Edge report from 2019 has the non picture art in it so I didn't take pictures of that stuff this time.

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

If a moderator happens to read this can you add includes menus to the title?

cgolf1 · February 27, 2023

That night we went to the Tommy Green Jr. show. He is a singer/entertainer. After the first song or two I was ready to leave. Thinking back on it, his accent was creeping into his singing voice and it wasn't sitting well in my ear. We did stick around and he did a good act interacting with the crowd a lot and getting them to sing along. On 2 or 3 songs he went a bit higher in his range and shed the accent and had a very pleasant singing voice. Overall a very decent show, but for me being picky it didn't seem like the edge we remembered yet. We really didn't do much else that night.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

Day 4 Aruba

Due to the medical emergency, we aravied after 3 in port, original was I believe before 8 AM and our shore excursion was canceled. This was the one we were least excited about so that was ok.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

The added a beyond the podium, the majestic elephant, since we were arriving late. Bonnie Koppelman was the presenter for these. This was probably the best of the presentations and it was a bonus one she hadn't planned on doing.

Sail into port was pretty cool. For some reason we always like to watch this.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

For supper I did the Escargot and Salmon Gravlax for apps and the grilled honey glazed pork chop for my main. All were very good. My wife did a fruit plat and creamy spinach and artichoke dip for apps and the Chicken kiev for the main and all were good.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

The evening entertainment was Reuel, who is a classical crossover musician and composer that plays the piano. We sat second level behind him and was really cool to watch him play. Seeing how fast his hands move to play give you a greater appreciation for his playing. He mixed in both classical and a bon jovi and some Queen songs. It was a very good performance.

We did also watch the Frisky Fued and it was entertaining. That was pretty much it for the day. We have started to venture back to Eden some and that icky smell that used to be there is gone and the wife can now enjoy the space.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

Day 5 Bonaire

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

On this island we did the 4x4 Arawak Off Road Safari excursion. This was a blast and our guide was awesome. we mostly saw the end of the island opposite the salt flat. The ride was a lot of fun and you do catch air in the seats when we were light off roading. I would not recommend this for people with mobility issues, as you essentially need to climb up and down a ladder like tailgate in to the Uni Mog. The sites were nice and the guide we had was great and made it fun and informative.

cgolf1 · February 28, 2023

For supper I had the spiced Gumbo and the gluten free version of the Hot melted cheese Saganaki and the salted Tiliapia filet. My wife also had the Gumbo and the oven roasted turkey. All food was excellent especially the oven roasted turkey.

At this point we had moved all of our reservations to Cyprus to keep the same serving team and to make the gluten free preorder much easier. The hostess Gypso, was fantastic helping us out and just a very nice person. Our service team and sommelier are pictured below on the table card. All were tremendous. Terry always saw us in the buffet and said hi. This was the first time I did wine pairings at night and all the wines selected for me were very good. We ended up tipping Gypso at the end as well and she seemed very surprised, I am guessing that position must not get tipped often. We definitely called out all 4 in the end of cruise survey, as the service was top notch.

cgolf1 · March 1, 2023

The show was colors of life and the show and songs were really good, but for me the singing wasn't clicking. Still really enjoyed the show though.

We had started to play cards at night in eden on the ramp towards the back of the ship. It was a nice and quite spot and we would be away from people, because the number of people coughing that cough was increasing. The bonus was we finally found an amazing vocalist, Johnny doing the Acoustic experience. This guy was incredible and it was a nice way to end the night.

hcat · March 1, 2023

On 2/25/2023 at 9:05 PM, cgolf1 said:

So this is a special post for me and probably many others too. I started on this board back when the Edge was being built and was so excited for that cruise. I was one of original Edgeis I guess and I think the comments then were as bad if not worse than with the recent dining changes. VTCruising was super supportive over that time and kept me positive about our first Celebrity cruise on the Edge. I never met her in person but she was such a positive and genuine person and she is missed by all that knew her. I gave Mr Edge a pat on the nose and thought of VT.

thank you for the memory of the original EDGIES, Mr Edge and Vt Cruiser..

Marilyn was a wonderful online friend to so many of us...Her good deeds here and in the non cruise world live on

i think of her often..glad you remembered...

cgolf1 · March 1, 2023

Day 6 Curacao

The excursion for the day was the Seaworld Explorer. This is a boat that has the underside protruding out of the bottom of the boat with windows out both sides. The bench seats were pulled down and you could sit side by side. You left from a resort and went over a coral reef. The water was really rough which I thought was a blast, but one person did get sick. The water was super clear and there were a lot of fish including a squid and some octopus. The guide also scuba dived to feed the fish at one point. Seeing the drop off from the shallows to very deep water was really cool and kind of takes your breath away. When you are on the ship you never really think about the depth of the water that you read on what was our favorite and only channel we watched, the navigation channel.

cgolf1 · March 1, 2023

For supper I did the Oven roasted Chicken Saltimbocca and Escargot. Both were excellent and the escargot does double duty because I dip my gluten free bread in what I hope is butter, but whatever it is tastes awesome.

My wife did the Hot melted cheese Saganaki and the Oven roasted Chicken Saltimbocca.

You are probably noticing the pattern that we are finding that we like all the food, as we always have on Celebrity:)

Sorry about the blurry picture, this one just didn't want to take.

cgolf1 · March 1, 2023

So last night the Edge woke up musically for me listening to Johnny sing, and Uptown bought it tonight and it felt like we were back on our first Edge cruise. Great singing and performance.

The deck party was supposed to happen that night and I also wanted to try out the monopod with my DSLR camera to get used to it for the canal day so I got some night shots. They moved the deck party to the club and we were going to go see what it was about, but hearing the crowd from 3 floors up we decided to not go.

cgolf1 · March 2, 2023

Day 7 At Sea

Today we attended anothe beyond the podium about slow motion sloths and it was very interesting. Then we attended the Secrets of ships navigation and Panama information. The attendance for this was insane. All the sears were taken and people were sitting in the aisles and standing where they could. This was one point we couldn't avoid people coughing, so we just hoped for the best. It was an interesting presentation that was a little lighter than I expected on the Panama canal. The Q&A was interesting and someone asked about the lack of forward facing views.

Brief rant here. For the people that sail retreat this is not aimed at you. The biggest fail on the E-Class is that it doesn't have a forward view that is available to everyone. The E-Class is the only mainstream line of ships I know of that doesn't offer everyone on the ship a forward lookout spot.

For Supper I had the smoked ham and split pea soup and the crispy chicken roulade. My wife had the Hot melted cheese Saganaki and the crispy chicken roulade. Supper again was very tasty.

Tonight's show was a Hot Summer Night's dream which was a favorite from our first Edge cruise and it was again very good.

Went to play cards in Eden expecting more Johnny singing, and nope they change it up every night and to my knowledge he doesn't play solo anywhere else. We had our fingers crossed we get to hear him again. We wrote him into the end of cruise survey as he should be one of the regular daily singers around the ship and my wife was bold in saying they should give him a shot in the main theater. This guy was just that good across many genres of music.

cgolf1 · March 2, 2023

Day 8 Panama Canal

Well it finally arrived. We were to enter the breakwater around 6, so we were up by like 5:15 and up at our spot on the front most seat on the port side of the sunset bar by 5:45 AM where one of us stayed at all times until 4 in the afternoon. I used the seat thing to stand on to get pictures down the side of the ship. It was an amazing experience and now we want to do a full transit on a smaller ship to see the original locks. We did have a medical emergency evac at the middle lock, but this person was in a wheelchair, so I hope it was for a more minor issue and that they are doing fine now. I will have 2-3 posts of pictures to follow.

One thing we thought was pretty cool was that the workers all took some time out to catch the view as we were going through the locks, and even better their superiors didn't seem to mind. Nice to see the crew get to enjoy the experience as well.